Details mode is probably the most popular way to view files, particularly for Norton Commander fans. Changing over to Details mode is as easy as a couple of mouse clicks. Simply click on the View menu and select the Details option as shown below. Note the keyboard shortcut shown on the right side of the menu. By taking advantage of keyboard shortcuts, such as the Ctrl+F2 highlighted in this example, you can quickly switch to other viewing modes that may be more helpful when working with certain types of files and then switch back when finished. Takng the time to familiarize yourself with keyboard shortcuts can help you get the most out of FreeCommander and accomplish tasks faster than ever before.

One of the most important features in FreeCommander involves the creation and application of Custom Columns. This feature allows you to customize the Details display so that it shows only the information that you find most important and to show them in the order that you prefer. To access this feature, you can click on the Extras menu, then select Settings. You can also use the Shift+Ctrl+S keyboard shortcut if you wish.

Once you have entered the Settings dialog, navigate down to the View entry and highlight the Custom columns (profiles) entry. To start defining your first profile, click on the Add to list button shown in the screen shot below:

When prompted for a profile name, type in an entry that is appropriate to the configuration. For the purposes of this guide, the name sample was assigned. Once you have entered a profile name, move to the Define columns button and select it with the mouse as shown below:

The resulting dialog is where you define the columns that you want to include. To help get you started, a default entry is pre-entered into the list. The Name entry shows a left alignment, a width of 25 and an assigned Name content. For now, simply leave that entry as is and select the Add to list button to create more entries.

For the purposes of this guide, four additional fields have been entered for Extension, Size, Date Modified and File Attributes. Default alignments, widths and contents were used during the creation of the entries. There are other content fields to choose from should you wish to include different entries.

After the fields have been entered, the settings for each one can be customized to fit your preferences. For the purposes of this guide, the Name entry was expanded to a width of 31, the Extension entry to a width of 2 and a right alignment, the Size entry to a width of 13 and a right alignment, the Modified entry to a width of 22 and a right alignment and the Attributes entry a width of 7 and a left alignment.

Having completed the configuration, all that is left is to activate that configuration for each of the file panes. With the appropriate file pane selected, go to the View menu, highlight the Custom columns entry and in the expanded menu space, select from the profiles listed there, in the case of this guide, the sample entry. Repeat this for each of the file panes you wish to reflect this profile and you should see the expected result in the FreeCommander interface.

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